Engagement: Is It Twitter’s Greatest Problem?

Article Last Updated: August 5, 2017 by Rob Sutter

Let’s say that you have decided to head to a local fitness store in order to pick up a couple of weights. All that you are looking for is a couple of 5 lb. dumbbells so that you can exercise your arms at home. Once you buy and bring them home, though, perhaps a day will go by when you do not use them. Then that day will become a week and that week will turn into a month.

This might very well be case for Twitter and a good degree of its user base.

According to the Wall Street Journal, it seems as though engagement is one of the bigger problems surrounding Twitter. More specifically, Twopcharts – which monitors Twitter account activity – determined that out of the 974 million accounts on the site, around 44% of them have never sent out a tweet. While this is an unusual statistic, Twitter has made it a point to state that a monthly active user is defined as one that simply logs onto his or her account every month; they do not have to necessarily tweet or become involved with Twitter otherwise.

This is interesting, to say the least, because one would expect that every user would have at least one message to their name. For example, I had a Pinterest account when the site was starting to gain ground. I wound up pinning a couple of images until I simply became bored and forgot about the site altogether. At the very least, I found myself engaging with the site at the onset. The fact that almost half of the accounts on Twitter lack even a single tweet is, to say the least, bizarre.

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Even though Twitter’s definition of an “active” user is clear enough, I’m not too sure how this is going to fare in the long run. Keep in mind that it is because of constant engagement that users will be more inclined to tweet and socialize with others. This is the case for just about any social networking site. Facebook has over one billion users; would this statistic mean nearly as much if almost half of those accounts were not utilized? To the perspectives of online marketing firms, it would be viewed as digital dead weight.

Of course, it can be argued that Twitter is a more difficult platform to understand than others. For example, Facebook is, by and large, straightforward enough for anyone to use, regardless of their level of experience with the Internet. Profiles are made clear and the ability to submit text and photos alike is easy. It’s understandable why there would be a good number of people who would sign up for Twitter, become frustrated with the layout, and give up. This isn’t to say that everyone in the estimated 44% had this problem but it could have been the case for many.

In your opinion, though, what is the reason for this? Why do you believe that there are many Twitter accounts without even a single tweet for each of them? Leave your thoughts below!

Note: This post is a guest post from a member of our DMR Insider Community.